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Thursday, 26 January 2012

Hitman Absolution: Vision vs Committee Design

Bald is beautiful.

UK, January 26, 2012

Joni Mitchell once posited, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" Clearly, Mitchell has never asked this question of a gamer, many of whom believe they know exactly what it is they have and know perfectly well what it is that they want – and most-certainly-do-not want – next.

And yet, the industry continues to be plagued by pesky, maverick game designers who stubbornly insist on drawing on their wealth of experience and following their own creative vision, instead of simply acquiescing to the myriad demands of fans – fans of the Hitman franchise, for the sake of convenient example. Were IO Interactive to peek into a fan forum, it would find a veritable hotbed of creativity and any number of ideas about what should be both included and excluded from its upcoming Hitman: Absolution.

So, why not thank them for their input and fuse together all of this feedback to create a game that would surely satisfy each and every diverse feature request and be a guaranteed multi-million seller to boot? The answer is simple: because a game designed in this way would be an unmitigated disaster.

"Sometimes if you ask people want they want they actually don't really know," explains Tore Blystad, game director at IO Interactive. "Or they know what they had before and they want that again, just better.

"Maybe they also want to combine that with their other favourite games and have this Frankenstein-type creation: Hitman combined with GTA and parts of Metal Gear on top, for example. Nobody can make that game so, to an extent, we have to put that aside and concentrate on making a game that, when it's released, the fans say 'this is exactly what I want'. That's our goal."

In the past, Blystad has been lambasted in forums and comment threads for daring to suggest that IOI will not be dictated to by fans. These are likely fans who take this to mean that IO Interactive does not value their opinion - a position that Blystad clarifies.

"We're very mindful of the fans," Blystad reiterates. "People at [IO Interactive] spend a lot of time reading the forums, the poor souls: that can be tough - the fans don't exactly hold back, you know?

"Of course, we want to make an engaging game, we know [some fans] are worried but we hope that when they have the game in their hands they understand the design decisions that have been made."

One such design decision that Blystad, IO Interactive and Square Enix will all be hoping the fans understand is Instinct mode. Upon its unveiling, Instinct mode prompted snorts of derision and panicked concerns amongst fans that Hitman: Absolution was to suffer that most ignoble of fates: the dreaded dumbing down.

Shown in trailers as Agent 47's ability to apparently see through walls, Instinct mode's applications are, in fact, numerous. Moreover, they are also optional: use it to get a heads-up on enemy placement in an adjoining room, or don't. When plans unravel and a mass shoot-out becomes inevitable, engage its slow-motion tag-target to even the odds or pass it up to slog it out the old-fashioned way.

"I think people were upset by Instinct mode because they felt that this character wouldn't use such a thing," Blystad empathises. "But for us it was a very natural feature because we have this super-trained assassin who is hyper-aware of his surroundings, very alert and would be able to sense things that a normal person wouldn't. His entire existence is his work: this is who he is and what he's capable of.

"And technically, you're not seeing through walls but are instead sensing that there are guys on the other side of that wall."

Even the most cynical of protesters would struggle to discredit Instinct mode's validity in the areas of disguise and subterfuge, staples of the Hitman series. Here, it can be used when 47's disguise must pass close scrutiny and prompts him to exhibit some mannerism or behavioural trait appropriate to the outfit he is sporting. This serves to increase the potential of him remaining undetected in close quarters or where he might otherwise cause heads to turn.

Those that wish to forgo Instinct mode to ply their assassin's trade under the harshest of conditions and against the savviest of AI should take sadistic solace in IOI's dedication to its fans. It is the intention of the Danish developer that Absolution's highest difficulty setting represents the hardest ever Hitman experience.

"We're still tinkering with the specifics of what the hardcore mode will entail, to ensure that it's right for those people that want to invest a lot of time in it," Blystad explains. "We're looking at what interesting elements make a game more difficult, rather than just docking the player's health and making the NPCs shoot faster and harder.

"So, the NPCs spot you faster, they're more alert and have a longer memory. Plus, the way the NPCs populate a level will change, meaning that containing a situation that starts to turn bad will be a lot more difficult."

Gamers have every right to air their views, as well as provide feedback to the purveyors of their entertainment experiences - and for the most part, developers and publishers should appreciate the value of an impassioned and vocal community. After all, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all. But at some point, a developer has to move away from what its audience thinks it wants and have faith in the concept of its design, as IOI is doing.

Those that remain unconvinced should consider this: it's not the bullet-point summaries of Hitman: Absolution's design documents that will make or break it, but their execution. And execution is something that Agent 47 and IO Interactive know a great deal about.